Visible
by DukeGirl2001
Summary: Liz sees Red's scars. My response to the FB Lizzington Shippers prompt. Probably a one-shot.


**This is my attempt at writing for the 'Liz sees Red's scars' prompt from the FB Lizzington Shippers page. I really have no idea what this is…I tried to write something else and this is what came out. Let me know what you think. Comments (good or bad) always appreciated :) Thanks for reading! **

**Disclaimer - I own nothing.**

Xxx

The elegant doorway molding frames the light coming from beyond her line of sight and she sees him illuminated in front of the heavy desk.

She pauses, her feet coming to a rest, sinking into the deep pile of the hallway carpet and she watches him. Her gaze tracing his form and she can't make herself continue to her room.

His shirttail hangs loosely below his waist and he works one cufflink and then the other. The metallic plink subtle but audible as each metal piece came to rest on the smooth mahogany surface.

There's a grace she thinks, a grace and a weariness she's missed before. When she watches him. Which she does, she watches him, often but she tells herself not really.

He sighs and she can almost feel his breath against her and the almost touch confuses her and she wonders why she is standing in the hallway looking at him. Why, a half a year into this chase for the elusive Berlin, a half a year after taking his side (because that's what she did), she stands rooted to the floor, unable to move.

He finishes the task and the French cuffs relax and cover the top of his hands and somehow this makes the shirt look too big and he seems…younger.

And she is still staring.

The muscles of his back contract and relax and repeat and his hands are working over the buttons on the front of his shirt and she can't actually see the movements but she knows they are there.

And they are really not the only movements she's been anticipating lately. They are working as one – one team. And they are looking for Berlin together. And that's all.

At least that's what she tells herself when she thinks about things…like this.

The still crisp cotton relaxes around his shoulders and she knows what's about to happen – and it probably is an invasion of privacy – despite their travel, their shared space, the hunt – she has still never seen him without his armor and has really never tried to understand the difference between the armor and the man. That something exists under there and that something, that someone, might exceed her ability to handle things right now.

He shrugs the shirt off one shoulder and then the other and she wonders if it is an old injury or a new one that makes the motion awkward. And somewhere in the back of her mind she thinks again about moving out of the doorway.

But she doesn't.

The shirt pools on the floor and she sees the place where the sun touched skin of his neck meets the lighter skin of his upper shoulders and it makes her breath stutter and almost stop because under all the armor is a man. And she finds herself drawn to this man.

And the man is Red.

Her gaze travels down past the beginning of the lighter skin and she sees it now and her heart seems to stop.

Xxx

"_Red_," he hears her alarm in the hissing exhale.

"Red – " the scars on his back making her seemingly forget the situation, moving closer to him and laying her hand on his upper back, right under his shoulder.

"Red…" her fingers tracing the uneven skin. So gently. Her fingers moving slowly with the sound of her voice…"what happened?" And the concern in her voice is undisguised.

He hadn't seen her enter the room. The familiarity of their current predicament clouding his judgment. He must have forgotten to shut the door.

"Red, when did this…" the touch of her fingertips still and he can hear and almost feel her sharp inhale of breath. He waits for the exhale but the air is frozen.

He knew this day would come. Avoided it, thought about it, forced it out of his mind. But he knew – it would come.

"_The fire_…" her words are short but the implication long.

"The fire." She says it again as if repeating the words will push the rush of fragmented thoughts tearing about her head to still.

"The fire…" she says it again. The intonation not that of a question anymore.

He braces for her…reaction, rejection. He's not sure which. Finds he's holding his breath as she was holding hers.

He purses his lips and works to form the words he knows should come but they get lost somehow and her hands land back on his shoulders. Both hands on his shoulders. Not moving. Barely touching the skin. But there. She tightens her hold. So slightly – and he feels himself turning towards her – so they are face to face.

"You…were…there?" Her words spaced far apart – she needs to ask but doesn't want to know the answer.

"Yes." The yes floats out into the darkness beyond the bed and it is the yes on which everything that was and will be rides. Again, he knew it was coming, but so different now it is here.

"Why…?"

The complicated pieces of that answer having long since fragmented and buried themselves in different parts of his life. A lifetime ago really. He considers what to say –

"Did you start it?" And he knows she means the fire and the desperation dances around the edge of each word and he can almost feel her fleeing the room even thought she is _still right there_. Still touching him, her hands on his shoulders, in fact.

"Yes." The word true but the story it tells false and the truth becomes suddenly important to him and that she knows it before she makes any decisions about what to do next – _whether to go_.

"You killed –" he cuts her off before she – before she repeats the awful words for yet another man –

"I tried to save him Lizzie." It is bleak. The situation now and then. "The fire – it was to save him."

Her eyes focus squarely on his and fear begins to work its way through to his extremities and nausea settles heavy in his gut. It's been a long time since he's thought about that night. Thought about the smoke and the burning and the air.

"He was trying to disappear." He whispers the words and _she is still here_.

"You weren't supposed to be there Lizzie. You weren't supposed to be…" The detail so important and so painful, even now, even now that she knows that she's ok. That he did save her.

He sees her now – as she was then. Silent. The roaring hum and staccato pop of fire rising and falling around her. Her eyes, wide and unblinking, staring into his. A stranger to her. The smoke growing heavier and heavier and making each breath burn.

His pulse jumps and he sees her see it in the side of his face, his neck. Her eyes wander over him and he realizes that he is bare and exposed to her and her hands are on his skin – not the way he might have imagined. When he imagines it…sometimes.

"He was there?" She's referring to her father and he sees everything she did know start to clash with what she is hearing now and he wishes he could take the sting away.

"He was there Lizzie, he was there." He remembers the body in the hallway. Arms extended past the doorframe. The pooling crimson bleeding through the white shirt and running onto the floor.

"But he was already gone - they got there first." And he doesn't explain who they are or who he is because this is already more than he planned to tell. And it's only because she saw his back and he is _scared_ that _she will leave_ that he is talking about this at all.

Her hands work their way down his arms and up again. Skimming over other scars – visible and not, and running down the side where the skin became undone.

"You were there." He sees the flames in her mind, licking the walls and creeping closer. And she knows the girl was her, he doesn't have to say it.

And he sees her, he still sees her, she comes back to him in his dream. Haunts him.

"And you rescued me?" Her voice quiet in the room. And he knows it's about so much more than she is saying but it's all he can do to answer her actual question. The other ones still heavy in the darkness.

"I carried you, yes." This is true. He can still feel the delicate weight of her in her arms. Had never had reason to carry a child before.

"Your back – " she runs her hand down the length of his back and he can't help but react. Just the tiniest bit – because it's her and because despite the situation he is here and she is here and her hands are on him. And it is awful and terrible and exhilarating all at the same time.

"They locked the door." He glances up and watches the horror play across her face. He had forgotten the horror. Time making the emotion numb.

"I pushed you through the window – you cut your hand – the glass..." He reaches up and encircles her wrist with his thumb and forefinger.

Her eyes blink and seem to widen even more.

"And then I came out too." And there was time between that last action, pushing her through the window, and this action, his escape, and in that time the fire had raged and he had thought that he would die there on the floor in someone else's home and for someone else's sins. But he keeps those words inside.

"You're the friend. The one that brought me to my father – to Sam." He nods because it's true and there isn't much that needs to be added to that.

"You saved me." He's not sure that this much is true.

"I carried you – " he corrects her because he's no one's savior. The opposite really. That night he started down the path he's on now and, despite the bright light that is her, will most likely continue to follow.

"It turned me into a monster Lizzie." And he knows she knows what he means. The inside following the path that the outside made that night. The night they knew he was there and they knew that he knew and his life began subtly, and not so subtly, changing direction.

He waits for her to speak but he doesn't hear any words. Just feels the soft skin of her cheek as it comes into contact with his shoulder and he feels the delicate muscles in her arms tense as she pulls herself to him and then he finds himself in her embrace.

"…_thank you_," she whispers and if he wasn't so attuned to her – to every aspect of her – he would have missed it. The hope, the change, that lay embedded in those words.

Her words, and the hour, and the relief, soothing and unexpected relax him and he allows himself to reciprocate her embrace. Let's himself inhale deeply and fill his lungs with her. He feels his hands drift to her sides and run up and down. Up and down.

_And she is still here._


End file.
